There have been growing concerns over the impact of tobacco waste on the environment and the user, pushing aside the impact it has on the farmer.
According to researchers, tobacco contains at least 70 cancer-causing chemicals, also known as carcinogens, making consumption of tobacco the leading preventable cause of cancer and cancer-related deaths.
Tobacco not only leads to cancer of the lungs but also cancers of the mouth and throat, voice box, oesophagus, stomach, kidney, pancreas and liver, among others. Furthermore, nicotine in tobacco leaves leads to cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes.
Last year, the World Health Organization and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in collaboration with the Kenyan government, started a project in Western to aid farmers move away from tobacco farming to other sustainable crops.
This project saw many farmers produce crops like high-iron beans and maize, thus improving their livelihood and health significantly.
Aside from hundreds of long-time tobacco farmers switching to alternative crops, they also participated in training and engaged in planting high-iron beans in fields where tobacco once grew.
The farmers' health improved, more children previously working on the farms enrolled back in school and they have better crops for the environment replacing tobacco.
According to the WHO, farmer groups that participated in the project sold 135 tonnes of beans to the World Food Programme, delivering them significantly more income compared to income from tobacco farming.
However, there are farmers still engaging in tobacco farming in the region, posing a challenge to ending the tobacco epidemic in the country.
There is a need to sensitise farmers on the effects of tobacco farming and tobacco consumption on one’s health, the soil and the environment at large.
Handling tobacco takes a toll on farmers as they may suffer from nicotine poisoning, also known as Green Tobacco Sickness, which is characterised by headache, muscle weakness, dizziness, nausea and vomiting aside from pesticide exposure and musculoskeletal trauma.
According to researchers, when nicotine contained in tobacco leaves mixes with rain, dew or sweat, it gets into the skin and is absorbed into the bloodstream more easily. High temperature increases the rate of nicotine absorption into the bloodstream.
Contrary to other crops where risks such as exposure to herbicides and pesticides used during farming and preservation are external to the plant, tobacco plants themselves are the source of biohazards. Additionally, having water or moisture on the leaves of tobacco drastically increases the risk of getting GTS during harvesting.
According to research by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, moisture on tobacco leaves as a result of condensation or rain may contain as much as nine milligramme of dissolved nicotine per 100 millilitres of dew, equivalent to the nicotine content of six average cigarettes.
During harvesting, workers walk between rows of tobacco plants snapping off individual leaves and holding them against their chests, thus, exposing their skin to nicotine.
Farmers working on tobacco farms are advised to use protective clothing like gloves and water-resistant clothing to minimise exposure to nicotine from tobacco leaves, which may be expensive for them.
Pesticides used in tobacco farming end up being deposited in the soil, causing soil and water pollution. The chemicals are later washed up into the rivers during the rainy season, hence, endangering aquatic life.
Under the theme 'We need food, not tobacco', the 2023 global World No Tobacco Day campaign intends to encourage tobacco producers to cultivate nutrient-dense, sustainable crops by increasing awareness of alternative crop production and marketing strategies.
This will enable more farmers to contribute to making the country food secure as tobacco contributes to less than one per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, the director general of WHO, says by focusing on growing food crops as opposed to tobacco, we put greater emphasis on health, preserving ecosystems and enhancing food security for everyone.
Additionally, the campaign aims at exposing the tobacco industry’s efforts to obstruct attempts by multiple stakeholders to substitute tobacco farming with viable economic alternatives, thus, contributing to the worldwide food catastrophe.
Statistics show that an estimated 2,737,000 adults and 220,000 youngsters smoke tobacco daily and more than 6,000 Kenyans lose their lives due to tobacco-related illnesses. Every year, more than 8 million people die from tobacco-related diseases worldwide. The reason for more than a million of those fatalities is secondhand smoking exposure.
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